The sale of Great Britain material held by Grosvenor on December 17 proved once again that demand remains steady, with some very strong prices achieved for line-engraved material.

Included in the sale was a remarkable registered envelope (lot 1258)sent in November 1937, from London to Rio de Janeiro, the postage totalling £22 1s 3d. This was paid by affixing a block of 24 of the 5s ‘Seahorse’ (one of the stamps has since been removed), three blocks of ten of the 10s ‘Seahorse’ (again one stamp has been removed),and a block of four of the 10s, plus five of the 3d stamp of 1934-36. This very unusual item sold for £2,941 (all prices quoted include the buyer’s premium, etc). £18,820 was paid for what is believed to be a unique example of a House of Lords ONE PENNY envelope, sent from London to Ashby de la Zouch, cancelled with a red

Crowned datestamp ‘PAID FE 3/1840’. The envelope is without the word ‘Temporary’, and has the words ‘House of Lords’ in upper and lower case instead of the more usual small capital letters.

A 1d Mulready letter sheet, (lot 338) used on the official first day, May 6, 1840, and sent from Leeds to London, went for £10,586. In Leeds it received a red Maltese Cross and a datestamp showing an error in the year, ‘LEEDS/MY 6/1804’.

A letter sent from Liverpool to Bradford (lot 95) on July 7, 1840 with a Penny Black from plate 4 tied with a red Maltese Cross, then resent two years later from Liverpool, this time with a Penny Red cancelled with black Maltese Crosses, sold for £2,294.

There has recently been a noticeably growing demand for modern Great Britain errors. As multicolour printing was introduced for British stamps, so many were discovered with colours omitted. One such was the 1966 British Birds issue comprising a se-tenant block of four 4d stamps. One of the scarcest missing colours on this issue is that of bistre on the phosphor version: only six blocks are recorded, and the one offered went for £4,490.

Only two examples of the 1980 Sports 15p value with the gold (Queen’s head) omitted are known: a fine unmounted mint example sold for £9,998.

The one-day sale achieved total realisations of £701,078. A full list of the prices realised is available on this website